Xperia Play and NGP: Is Sony Dropping the PlayStation Product Brand?

Sony has finally announced the PlayStation Phone as the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. It has everything you need for handheld gaming except one detail: the name PlayStation on it.

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For months gamers and smartphone fans have been waiting with bated breath on news about the PlayStation Phone. Separate from the PlayStation Portable 2 (Now the Next Generation Portable or NGP), it's a smartphone and a handheld gaming platform in one device. We've seen rumors, alleged leaks, and endless speculation, and now the PlayStation Phone is finally official.

Except it's not. Sony unveiled its handheld smartphone/gaming device during the Super Bowl in an unsettling commercial involving surgery, the Android mascot, and thumbs. The device is called the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, and it seems to have everything: direction pad, analog touchpads, even triangle-circle-X-square face buttons. It's just missing one thing: the name PlayStation anywhere on the device.

Besides a tiny concession that the device is "PlayStation Certified," the Xperia Play is in no way a PlayStation Phone, Sony Ericcson PSP, Xperia PlayStation Portable, or any other combination of words that invoke Sony's gaming brand. Considering the brand power of PlayStation and the relative weakness of Xperia, this is a puzzling move on Sony's part. We've been expecting a PlayStation Phone from Sony for months, and now we're getting a smartphone with a ton of gaming design aspects but only a hint of PlayStation in its branding. This is made even more curious by Sony's history of phone branding. The company has linked several other Sony product brands with Sony Ericsson cell phones, like the Sony Ericsson W800i Walkman phone, and the PlayStation name on the Xperia Play speaks volumes in its absence.

This isn't the first odd choice Sony has made. When it unveiled the expected-to-be-PlayStation Portable 2, it also dropped the PlayStation name from the device. Instead, the handheld gaming platform it introduced to us was tentatively named the Next Generation Portable (NGP). The name PlayStation sat just under the screen, all by its lonesome and not part of the project's official name.

Sony might be gearing up to phase out PlayStation as a product line and instead turn it into a unified gaming platform across multiple devices. The telling factor here is the cryptic "PlayStation Certified" logo at the end of the Xperia Play commercial. We know Sony is planning the PlayStation Suite, a unified downloadable content platform that works on both the Xperia Play and the NGP, but it could go well beyond that. The company has done very well in producing content that's playable on both the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable. Both PlayStation Minis and PlayStation Originals (ports of original PlayStation games) run flawlessly on both systems, despite having vastly different levels of processing power. PlayStation Suite games will be compatible with both Xperia Play and NGP, and PlayStation Originals will be included among them.

So far, the whole PlayStation Suite and PlayStation Certified concepts apply only to the Xperia Play and NGP, and revolve around Android 2.3 implementation on PlayStation Certified smartphones and the NGP's own ARM Cortex-A9 architecture. However, it could go further than that. Any future home console (a "PlayStation 4," until it's called otherwise) is far away on the horizon, and considering Sony's previous commitment to downloadable content, PlayStation Suite could become the first bricks in the road to a new gaming platform that won't involve PlayStation products, but a PlayStation service and a library of games available online on multiple devices. Sony tried and failed this approach with the PSP Go, but if it lays the groundwork first with the PlayStation Suite as a dedicated content platform, it could succeed when hardware generations finally shuffle forward.

The NGP and Xperia Play, while PlayStation-less in name, represent the next generation of portable PlayStation hardware. PSP owners (and some DS owners) are already looking forward to these devices as the next generation in handheld gaming, rather than the inching forward/stepping back the PSP Go represented, with an incomplete online game library and no way to play physical media.

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When the next PlayStation console is announced, it might not be called the PlayStation. Instead it will revolve around what Sony is shaping PlayStation to be: more a concept than a product line, an all-in-one store, service, and certification that will encompass multiple products. No Sony gaming device will be a PlayStation, because they will all be part of PlayStation.

Will Greenwald has been covering consumer technology for more than six years, and has served on the editorial staffs of CNET.com, Sound & Vision, and Maximum PC. Since graduating from Syracuse University in 2005, Will has been an active technology journalist both online and in print. His work and analysis has been seen in GamePro, Tested.com, Geek.com, and several other publications. He currently covers consumer electronics in the PCMag.com labs, focusing on Blu-ray players, set-top boxes, and other home theater equipment.
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